A key tenet of any transmedia narrative being community produced content that becomes part of the brand story itself.

This video was compiled by the son of a BMW motorcycle owner, telling his story of how he decided to restore an old 1958 BMW R-50 in tribute to his father.

Here's his description:

This is a photo story of my father's 1958 BMW R50:Boy meets girl, gets married, buys motorcycle. Rides it for 60,000 miles and has accident when wife is pregnant with 3rd child. (me) Wife orders motorcycle to be taken off road until all her children are grown and on their own. One day when bike is moved to a different storage location, son sits on bike and dreams of being a Jedi Master like his father. Couple grows old together and bike is not ridden for 40 years. Husband is now a grandfather of 7 and married for 50 years, when he dies of a stroke at age 71.Son looks over the old rotting machine and finds note attached to it from his father to him. Son decides to restore the old 1958 BMW R-50 as a tribute to his father. With the help of many friends, especially Peter Nettesheim, world renowned BMW collector, bike is restored to look even better than it did when it was built in Germany.

He even paid $1000 dollars to Pearl Jam's publishing company in order to use the Eddie Vedder track as his soundtrack.

If BMW have any sense they will be all over this, supporting and amplifying as soon as possible, and Eddie Vedder will be personally handing back a grand to it's creator, and playing guitar for him in his living room.

Underearners have a high tolerance for low pay.Underearners consistently accept low-paying jobs or jobs that pay less than they need, usually for the “freedom” it gives them.…Underearners are willing to work for free.Underearners regularly give away their time, knowledge, and skills for nothing. They’ll work at no charge without thinking twice. Most of the time, it’s so ingrained, they aren’t even conscious they’re doing it.…Underearners are lousy negotiators.Underearners are reluctant to ask for more, whether it’s to increase their fees or to request a raise. For some, it actually never crosses their minds to ask.…Underearners practice reverse snobbery.Most of us harbor all kinds of distorted perceptions about money. Underearners, however, tend to have a particularly negative attitude, particularly toward people who have it. Many will tell you they don’t like the rich.…Underearners believe in the nobility of poverty.At the same time underearners are spurning the wealthy, they are singing their own praises for surviving on so little. Many of them take great pride in barely eking out a living, as if it’s more noble and respectable to be one of the poor. Not only are people with money bad, they think, but so is money itself.…Underearners are subtle self-saboteurs.Underearners unwittingly throw banana peels in their own path in all sorts of ways, like applying for work they’re not qualified for, creating problems with coworkers, procrastinating or leaving projects unfinished, hopping from one job to another, always stopping just short of reaching their goals.…Underearners are unequivocally codependent.Underearners will sacrifice personal security and private dreams by putting other people’s needs before their own. Their kids, spouse, job, church, and friends all take precedence over their own needs and priorities.…Underearners live in financial chaos.They are more likely to be in debt, have smaller savings, fewer (if any) investments, and little idea where their money goes. Underearners often go from crisis to crisis, constantly moving money from one account to another, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, careening hopelessly toward financial disaster.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

There was some interest the other day over this Facebook app from Greek chocolate brand Lacta.

The app allows people customise a Lacta chocolate wrapper with a name, boy/girlfriend etc, and posting using the wall to wall feature.

While it's reasonably cute, simple to do and shareable and gained Lacta hundreds of thousands of Facebook 'fans' very quickly, I still come back to the same question around Facebook campaigning.

Where does the bone go afterwards?

Campaigns are just campaigns. Unless it leads to something else it's old school straight line thinking. I don't know where the Lacta thing is going to go after this, we'll see.

But many marketers looking at this will be getting excited about the wrong thing.An addiction to accumulating 'fans' for the sake of it is simply the new churn and burn. Getting temporary attention and the message out is easy.Getting people to care is the hard bit.

Yes, it will no doubt result in a short term sales spike, but how is that different from any traditional sales promotion? Fireworks then it all goes dark.

Here's a proper insight for you.

Humans are wired to to take as much interest in others as they believe others are taking in them.

So Lacta have got some people to repeat their campaign line.It remains to be seen how they will return the goodwill.Hopefully they will prove me wrong.

Lets see what happens after the campaign viagra wears off.For the moment this is filed under gimmix.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

In his book, Life, Keith Richards describes how he and Mick initially clicked, in the early days before the Stones even existed as a thing.He notes that they had almost identical tastes in music (blues, r'n'b) and an almost telepathic understanding, and agreement on which music was right and wrong.

Monday, January 10, 2011

In which, each Monday of 2011 we will post a nugget of uncommon sense.

Starting with this one...

“Obsessing about your competitors, trying to match or best their offerings, spending time each day wanting to know what they are doing, and/or measuring your company against them—these activities have no great or winning outcome.

Instead you are simply prohibiting your company from finding its own way to be truly meaningful to its Clients, staff and prospects. You block your company from finding its own identity and engaging with the people who pay the bills...Your competitors have never paid your bills and they never will.”Howard Mann, Your Business Brickyard: Getting Back to the Basics to Make Your Business More Fun to Run

TELL THE WORLD WHY YOU ARE DOING IT (even if they don’t get it, tell them anyway).

At a mere 3.50GBP the full book has got to be worth a look.

The brainchild of ex-Howies fella David Hieatt and illustrator Andy Smith, a portion of the proceeds are going towards the further development of their other project - the Do lectures, a TED-esque forum for people who do things to share their story and experience.

'The one thing the Doers of the world Do, apart from Do amazing things, is to inspire the rest of us to go and Do amazing things.'

And any book that credits Dick Dastardly as an inspiration gets my vote.

They say:'With the the API, TV sites, TV manufacturers, set top boxes, or any developer can access Miso in the same way our applications work today. Developers can develop new apps, integrate ‘check-in’ functionality into their own apps, and much more'.

Bearing in mind that it's been predicted that around 60% of all new TVs will have built-in network connectivity by 2015 and over 70% of these TVs will have an app platform built in, the post-digital future is increasingly looking like total digitality.Appointment to tweetAppointment to tweet part 2

Demographics were useful in the age of spray and pray marketing to the mass. They allowed random messaging to be slightly more relevant by 'targeting' age, gender, ethnicity, and other things like income bracket.

Scatter-gun advertising isn’t nearly as effective as it once was, and now demographics just ain't got that swing.

The internet has been the big disruptor, allowing people to connect and form groups around shared interest on a scale that has never previously been possible in human history.

Santa brought me the DVD of Elvis Costello's Spectacle TV series, in which Elvis has intimate chats with various musical legends. One episode features Tony Bennett, who backs up my argument.

When Elvis asks Tony who he thinks his audience is he replies:'I'm anti-demographics'.

I remember going to see Tony sing at Edinburgh Castle about 12 years ago, the crowd was an even mix of over 50's, ex-punkers in their mid-30's and teenagers/students.

Figure that one out demographically.

People now demand brands that founded on principles and values.Something to believe in, not just ever changing campaign lines, tweaked and tickled to fit lazy demographic data.

Tony just sings for anyone who loves swinging jazz numbers and the great american songbook...